An OpenFOAM function object for CHT, FSI, and fluid-fluid coupled simulations using preCICE.
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What is this?

This preCICE adapter is a plug-in (function object) for OpenFOAM, which can work with any recent version of OpenFOAM (.com / .org, see supported OpenFOAM versions). It supports fluid-structure interaction (fluid part), conjugate heat transfer (fluid and solid parts), and fluid-fluid simulations, while it is also easily extensible.

What can it do?

This adapter can read/write the following fields:

  • Temperature (read + write)
  • Heat flux (read + write)
  • Sink temperature (read + write)
  • Heat transfer coefficient (read + write)
  • Force (read + write)
  • Stress (write)
  • Displacement (read + write)
  • Displacement delta (read)
  • Pressure (read + write)
  • Pressure gradient (read + write)
  • Velocity (read + write)
  • Velocity gradient (read + write)

All features of preCICE are supported, including implicit coupling and nearest-projection mapping. Even though OpenFOAM is 3D, this adapter can also work in the 2D mode of preCICE, defining only one layer of interface nodes (automatically).

Try

Here you will find how to get the adapter, how to configure a case, how to extend the adapter to cover additional features, as well as a few notes on supported OpenFOAM versions.

Learn

Apart from following the documentation here, you will also often find us in OpenFOAM-related conferences. Before diving into preCICE and the OpenFOAM adapter for the first time, you may want to watch the recording of our training session from the 15th OpenFOAM Workshop:

Cite

We are currently working on an up-to-date reference paper. Until then, please cite this adapter using [1]:

Gerasimos Chourdakis. A general OpenFOAM adapter for the coupling library preCICE. Master's thesis, Department of Informatics, Technical University of Munich, 2017.

For CHT-specific topics, you may want to additionally look into [2] and for FSI into [3].

[1] Gerasimos Chourdakis. A general OpenFOAM adapter for the coupling library preCICE. Master’s thesis, Department of Informatics, Technical University of Munich, 2017.

[2] Lucia Cheung Yau. Conjugate heat transfer with the multiphysics coupling library preCICE. Master’s thesis, Department of Informatics, Technical University of Munich, 2016.

[3] Derek Risseeuw. Fluid Structure Interaction Modelling of Flapping Wings. Master’s thesis, Faculty of Aerospace Engineering, Delft University of Technology, 2019.